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They don't relize that the fields are not plowed by mule or oxen anymore. They would be stunned to see the tech in the harvesters and tractors these days. GPS, radios, air conditioning. Heck, thats just the equipment for the field. Then in the homes usually are computers hooked to the internet to trade futures on what they are growing/raising. Then there are applications to measure livestock growth/health as well as soil analysis systems. The city dwellers think you just throw out some food and water and the animals take care of themselves (no vets/tests needed). Or that there aren't any regulations on them in respect to soil conservation or contamination. Not to mention air quality. Sad, but most just don't have a clue.

And from time to the users have earned that ALOOF or BOFH response. (not really saying that I would kill anyone or cause major injury). But what I have done is gone to management, with documented proof of violations of policy attached to the policy and asked what action they would like me to take. **I only do that for termination offences. Where I work IT can have someone fired. And I have accomplished that task on more than one occasion. Management knows I will take action "only in defensive measures". Most of the time, when I ask management (note non IT management) what action they would like me to take, the response is first silence followed by - "I will make sure this doesn't happen again". But.. then I am labled aloof or not a team player. It wears off after a while, and the older management respects me for defending IT and the policies THEY set. Do they pay me enough for that? HELL no. Am I aloof, not at all! But if it's going to be me fired for something they did... I am not going down alone.

Worked in the IT field for over 30 years. Seen things and learned things about people I REALLY didn't want to know. But the not sharing of information from IT management to direct reports is very common. Even worse in government IT. But gossip does exist in IT. It is just not as useful. Most of the gossip is personal stuff and not what is going on in the organization. But then again, most organizations never share information with IT (maybe distrust?). So IT is the last to know about changes happening.

Investigate Google. Who is a major provider of internet search/advertising but has never been convicted of abusive monopoly practices of trying to diversify into other areas. Then limit them so that a convicted abusive monopoly (MS) can gain market share into search or other areas. "Look over there!!! It is more important!!!" "Don't watch what I (MS) am currently doing. It is unimportant." Simple misdirection while causing your competition great grief.

Sorry to hear you cant find a workable solution. I don't monkey with my daughters machines. She takes care of her own stuff. For your benefit and my curiosity I asked her how she did it. She sighed and said just go out to you tube dad and watch the videos. She said that there are many and its not hard. She is happy. It works for her. Maybe you should write Apple and let them know about your disappointment in them.

I also asked her if she gets her system issues taken care of via you tube, and I got another exasperated teen response and eye roll - " Ahh Dad, Google is your friend... DUH".

I laughed and went back to my daily routine. She wants to be a teacher when she gets out of school. I hope her attitude improves before then - LOL.

1) Itunes - sure there are plenty of great media players and what not for linux... but if you have an ios device whether its a new ipod, ipod touch, iphone, or ipad (and literally tens of millions of completely normal people do, they need itunes)."

Umm - my daughter uses I-Tunes on her Ubuntu machine. She's 17, and had no problem installing it and getting her ipod working.

2) TurboTax etc... yep its just one week a year. But millions of completely ordinary people do their taxes with this type of software.

LOL - been doing my Turbox Tax on the web under fedora and ubuntu for years. Cheaper than buying the CD's at the store. I have access to all of the forms and everything. Plus I dont have to waste space on my machine with software I only use once.

3) Miscellaneous Toys - from the child friendly Barbie photo manipulation software that came with the Barbie camera to setting up your new Logitech universal remote to an AppleTV to programming a Lego Mindstorms creation with LabView. This affects far more people than you might think.

Dont use any of those. Dont have any need, so I cant say if this is true or not.

4) Video games - Believe it or not, lots of perfectly normal people play everything from World of Warcraft,to Left4Dead, to the copy of Bejeweled or Riven they picked up at Walmart for $7 as an impulse buy.

I run 3d games all the time under Fedora. I used to use Ubuntu for games, but recently changed to gaming under Fedora. I run imprudence as well as others.

I have an HP8180C. It prints, copies, scans. Never had any issue under Fedora or Ubuntu. I have a wireless Logitec mouse and keyboard connected to my Ubuntu machine. Never had any problem, Anything I connect to these machines works just fine. I also burn DVD movies under Ubuntu. Hook up my digital camcorder to my firewire port on my laptop running Ubuntu. Copy off all of my daughters high school events and burn them to cd's or DVD's for her and my wife.

I really wish people would stop with these old worn out generalizations. If you dont like Linux, fine dont use it. But please dont tell people that it wont work for anyone. It works fine for my family and many of my neighbours and friends.

But I am unsure about the game of chicken. I have a strange feeling that Google is ready to take them on. I wouldn't be surprised of they got aggressive and took the battle directly to Apple, M$, and Oracle. Since they already are in a battle with oracle, we will have to wait and see what is left of oracles patents after all of the reviews. Most of Oracles patent claims have been shot down already. They are still being reviewed, and the court case is starting to drag on. Not sure Apple or M$ would really like to end up being dragged through the courts for years and years. But what I really cannot predict is who will be willing to settle early. All of these companies have A LOT of pride. So I can only imagine a LONG and protracted patent battle to the death. Or maybe its just my sick mind dreaming. - lol

or desperate. I think Google decided it's time to do battle. It's easy to sue the little guys. But when your the size of Google, it becomes MUCH riskier. They can drag Apple, Oracle and M$ on for years in court. This is not what those three want. A lot of FUD is being displayed, trying to show this as desperation. But I think Google got tired of them picking on the manufacturers of the Droid phones. If Google did nothing, the three would drive away all Droid phones. That in turn would cut into Googles revenue. So they must take action. They already work with the patent office for search in patents and prior art. They have a lot of experience in that now. And they may wield some influence there and in politics. Dont underestimate their cunning. If they assemble a good legal team, it should turn out to be quite a battle. Especially if HTC and others band together with Google. Just waiting for the bell, so I can start making the pop corn.

kkleiner writes "Dutch agricultural company PlantLab has created a high tech ‘plant paradise’ for growing crops. Instead of outdoors, they grow plants indoors in warehouses. Instead of sunlight they use red and blue LEDs. Water? They need just 10% of the traditional requirements. At every stage of their high tech process, PlantLab monitors thousands of details (163,830 reports per second!) with advanced sensors to create the perfect environment for each individual type of crop."Link to Original Source

An anonymous reader writes "As more companies adopt OSS for their hardware products we see more cases of abusive practices such as feature lock-down (e.g. tethering) and preventing installation of custom ROMs on mobile devices. Unlocking features comes at a premium and installing a custom ROM voids your warranty. Most OSS licenses guarantee that the source code remains open, but what is the point of modifying the source if you are not given build/installation instructions or can't legitimately use it under a service provider's contract? Have companies found an exploitable loophole that defeats the freedom that the license was meant to be protecting? Or is it that the OSS licenses never meant to protect against such cases?"

Mightee writes "Have you been tempted by the recent onslaught of Honeycomb tablets entering the market, but forced yourself to hold back due to the lack of virtualization options available on the platform? No, neither have I (held back, that is), but these 'pro' applications always help when using a tablet, right?

VMWare users will be no doubt be delighted to hear about the arrival of VMWare View on the Android Market, which has been designed and developed from the ground up to give Honeycomb users the best possible experience when accessing their virtual Windows desktops on the go."Link to Original Source

mikejuk (1801200) writes "Researchers have devised and tested a system called Theia that can perform an efficient parallel search of mobile phones to track down a target photo. It could be used to perform a realtime search for a missing child accidently caught in a photo you have just taken or the location of a criminal or political activist.You might think that the security and privacy aspects were so terrible that you just wouldn't install the app. However exceptional photos of a sporting or news incident are worth money and the profit motive might be enough for you to install it -"Install Theia and earn big money with your camera phone".
If money isn't your concern wouldn't you join the search for a missing child by downloading the app?You can see that having Theia installed on a large percentage of the worlds phones isn't so unlikely. Would you install it?"Link to Original Source